“Is that because of the women? The X chromosome?”
“Hey, maybe so,” he said. “Good thinking.”
Even in the midst of unbearable grief, his approval tickled a reaction out of my girlish pride. I stamped it down like a cockroach. “Why don’t I have it?” I asked. “Agent X?”
He became very uncomfortable. “Well, I, uh . . . from what I’ve heard, they think it’s got something to do with that time of the month . . . I don’t really know. They say little girls and, uh, older ladies don’t catch it that way, spontaneously, the way . . . menstruatin’ women do. And I know you have a . . . problem in that area.”
“You mean I’m immune because I don’t have a period?”
He winced. “Immune, no. You’re immune the way I am, the way anybody is who didn’t automatically go bad on Sadie Hawkins Day. That doesn’t make us safe from catching it off ’em. Half the things running around now are men.”
“Sadie Hawkins Day?”
“That’s what they were calling it when all the women turned, the first week of January.”
“Is that when this happened? God, we had no clue.”
“Oh yeah. They went off like they were synchronized. After that, everything went all to hell pretty quick—I’m not surprised you missed it. They say the original women carriers are different than the ones they infected, not so retahded, but I don’t know. To me it’s all the same if they’re after your ass.”
“But . . . my mother just went through menopause . . .” My voice quavered; somehow I’d blundered into facing the Gor gon. Thickly, I said, “How do those things infect you?”
“Now there’s no use going into that. I gotta pay attention to the road. You just sit tight.”
“Fred, how did you know to find me?”
He didn’t acknowledge the question for some time, giving jittery attention to his driving.
Grimly, I said, “You were home, weren’t you? You heard us.”
He scowled, nodded. He didn’t look at me. “You shouldn’t have been out there,” he said gruffly.
“We didn’t know.”
“Well, goddammit, you should have known!” Suddenly he was spitting with exasperation. “Don’t you think I’d’ve let you in if I hadn’t known the bastids were out there? They were there the whole time, and you two standing on my porch like there’s nothing funny!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry!” His temper abruptly dwindled, and he shook his head, saying, “I was gonna let her in. After you left, I was gonna take a chance and let her in.” The old man’s face contracted as if squinting into a high wind. “But they came first. They came running like a pack of hyenas, and she saw ’em before I did. Before I could do anything, she was gone—”
“Okay,” I said sharply, not ready to hear everything.
“That was when I got it in me to go. Take Sandoval up on his offer—why not?” His cactus-bristled cheek quivered. “I figured maybe I could get to you before . . . uh . . .”
He was very upset. It scared me and took me out of my panic. Trying to sound strong, I said, “And you did. You did it, Mr. Cowper. You saved me.” I started to cry.
“Don’t thank me just yet,” he said.
Suburban sprawl gave way to industrial blight. Fenced-off tracts of land were posted, PROPERTY OF U.S. NAVY—KEEP OUT and WARNING—RESTRICTED AREA—USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. It was reassuring in a way, though there was no sign of life. Any authority, however brutal, sounded pretty good. I craved the sight of men with guns the way a person lost in the desert craves a drink. For that matter, I was thirsty, too.
Coming to a dusty crossroads jammed with abandoned vehicles, Cowper was forced to slow down to a reluctant stop.
“Don’t stop,” I said shrilly.
“I have to,” he said.
“What about that median strip?”
“It’s too narrow. Hush up!”
There were no Exes (it was too awful to think of them as Xombies) in sight, but adrenaline lanced through my veins like quicksilver as I scanned the myriad hiding places. I tried to remind myself of how much time my mother and I had spent out in the open without knowing the risk, but that only alarmed me more. Cowper, too, showed nervousness as he bounced us through a rough three-point turn, squealing the tires. Finally, we were on our way. It was a short respite: after backtracking a couple of miles, he stopped the car between two empty pastures and got out.
I thought he was angry, but he leaned in, and said, “You want a bite to eat?”
Surprising myself, I opened the door without hesitation. My legs supported me. It was late in the day, but enough light penetrated the hills on either side to give ample warning of any threat . . . I hoped. Skittish as a rabbit, I joined Cowper at the rear. He was making a great deal of noise manhandling some devices of wood and chain link—they looked like screens for sifting clams. Leaning them against the bumper, he took out two small coolers and a rolled-up blanket.
“Spread this out on the grass, will you?” he said, handing me the picnic items. Seeing my disbelief, he added, “Go on, I’ll be right with you.” Then he began placing the screens on the car, and I realized they conformed to the shapes of the windows. He had devised them to belt across the top and fasten by hooks beneath the fenders. When the job was complete, the SUV resembled some kind of demolition-derby hot rod. “Should’ve really had these on the whole time,” he said. “Looks like a damn lobster trap, but at least they fit like I hoped.”
The daredevil look of it scared me, as if we were going to attempt a stunt. I wanted no contact with those creatures, however protected. As he came up the embankment to join me, I said, “Won’t they just hang on to those?”
“Nah . . . Well, as long as they don’t get in. Hey, it’s better than nothing. It was all I had to work with.”
“No, it’s good. It’s great.”
Less reassured than I would’ve wished, I kept my peace as we shared a meal of Rhode Island delicacies: cheeseless slabs of cold pizza, stuffed quahogs, pickled snail salad with yellow peppers and mozzarella balls, and gritty little cornmeal patties called jonnycakes. Once I got the first few bites down, I found I could eat, though I kept crying all over everything. To drink there was bottled lemonade—“For scurvy,” he said—and a Thermos of coffeemilk. It was chilly to be outside in the dead of winter, but as we sat and ate, I could feel my dread loosen its grip. In shock or not, I could breathe again.
“Thank you,” I said.
He replied offhandedly, “Might be our last meal. Oughta make the most of it.”
I stopped chewing, feeling the food like a brick in my stomach. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“I don’t want to get your hopes up. You’ll see. We’re almost there.”
Just as the sun began to set, moving figures appeared in the distance, and we packed up and got under way.
Returning to the traffic jam, Cowper slowed to bump the car up onto the highway divider as per my earlier suggestion. But as soon as we were on that narrow island, I realized why he had taken the extra measure with the screens: the median was scarcely wider than the car itself, hemmed in on both sides by bumper-to-bumper traffic. Driving along that cramped passage was unnerving—there could be no U-turns, no reversing at any speed. And the soft, grassy track seemed to go on forever.
Cowper didn’t seem unduly concerned. “Once we turn right at the intersection, should be clear sailing,” he said. “Long as we don’t get stuck in the mud.”
I put my faith in the elderly gent, though as we neared the end I didn’t like the look of things. This was no mere traffic jam, but an abandoned military roadblock. Through the misting windshield I could see relics of recent violence: shoes, broken glass, bullet holes, and spent shells everywhere. But no bodies.
Shadows flitted between the cars. I drew up my legs under me.
“Here they come,” I said.
They came in droves, like paparazzi. One minute our path appeared to be clear, the next it was cho
ked with rushing bodies that hurled themselves at us willy-nilly. Cowper accelerated, trying to mow them down, but even the most brutal impact did not seem to prevent many of them from clinging parasitically to the window cages. In minutes it became pitch-black inside the car, the windows draped with writhing, naked monsters. All credit to the driver for keeping us moving—I don’t know how he did it.
“How can you see?” I yelled over the pounding.
He ignored me, scrunching up his gnome face to peer between the cracks. Absorbed in his futile task, Cowper was bottoming out, hitting the horn again and again like a cranky old codger. I wouldn’t have minded, except his horn played the festive strains of “La Cucaracha” and seemed to energize them.
Several times we crashed into other cars, and I wasn’t sure if it was accidental or Cowper’s attempts to shake off our foe. If intentional, it failed, because for every Xombie we lost, we gained three by losing speed. It reminded me of a grisly nature film I’d seen showing cattle set upon by vampire bats. Also, the car was falling apart: I could hear the wup-wup-wup of flat tires, and smoke began pooling around our legs. We didn’t have long to live.
I remembered those radio reports referring to Agent X as some kind of disease, but it was incredible to me that these things could be in any way considered sick. They were superhuman, nothing stopped them. I could even tell that some were smart. One female Xombie—a blue woman who straddled the hood like a fierce, Celtic witch—had no trouble figuring out the arrangement that kept the screens in place, and began unhooking the straps. In seconds the whole thing was loose, held in place only by other bodies, and she battered its frame against the windshield, starring the glass.
This is it, I thought.
The web of cracks burst inward, the witch’s hands peeling apart the safety glass like a membrane and her grinning, black-eyed face thrusting through at me. Trapped in my seat, I could hear myself making a high-pitched whine from deep in my throat. Just then Cowper stamped hard on the brakes, causing the whole unmoored wire contraption and every Ex on it to go flying off the car in a jangling heap.
Finally, I could see again. We were clear of the traffic, clear of maniacs, and dragging our flopping treads down a tree-lined drive toward some kind of factory complex. The trees gave way to parkland, then a high fence and a series of concrete barricades. It was the end of the road, in every sense. Cowper turned off the dying motor, and we sat there in silence. My ears were ringing.
I was about to say the place looked deserted when a brilliant light filled the car. It beamed down from above the fence, from a hidden platform. Bathed in phosphorescent white smoke, we couldn’t see a thing.
“Hold up your hands.” Cowper held up his own, fanning identification cards like a poker hand. “Fred Cowper here!” he shouted. “Referred by James Sandoval!”
For a long moment there was nothing, then a voice shouted, “Step out of the vehicle!”
We climbed free of the car, keeping our hands up. Cowper had an old leather satchel slung from his shoulder. Again, he called out, “Fred Cowper here! Fred Cowper—don’t shoot!”
A different voice called down, “Fred Cowper? We thought it was the Mexican Army. What’d you do, take the scenic route?”
“Who’s that? Chief Reynolds? Beau, you know I’m cleared with Sandoval!”
“That was three weeks ago. We gave up waiting for you.”
“Goddammit, I’m here now! Open up!”
After an unbearable pause, the spotlight went off, and we could see men with guns lined up on a high catwalk and makeshift guard tower. They were not soldiers, but some kind of private security force—what my mother called “rent-a-cops.” Others below waved us toward a cagelike revolving door in the fence. “Hurry!” they shouted. “Run!”
As we made for it, something charged from the shadows between barriers, something naked, blue, and low to the ground. I barely saw it before gunfire erupted from a dozen places at once, and the thing was knocked over, spouting flesh. It was a headless torso riddled with holes, trying to get back up on its hands. Then we were inside the door, pushing as hard as we could. But it only revolved a quarter turn before crashing against the bolt, trapping us inside.
“Who’s the girl?” demanded a stunned-looking sentry.
“Sandoval said I could bring someone,” Cowper said. “Open the damn gate!”
“Girls are supposed to be quarantined.”
“That’s only if they might turn. She has a medical condition that stops her from maturing. Look at her—does she look seventeen?”
“She’s seventeen?” All the guards nearly jumped out of their skins, as if I were liable to snatch their guts out.
Impatiently, Cowper replied, “You morons, if she was gonna, she already woulda. Don’t you get it? Where’s Reynolds?” As he spoke, I saw a ghastly figure appear out of the hazy twilight, racing along the outside of the fence toward us. We were pinned in place; it could grab us right through the bars.
“Let us in!” I screamed.
“I guess it’s Bring Your Daughter to Work Day,” said the man Reynolds from above. “All right, go ahead,” he ordered. “Let ’em in.” The gate swung open, and we were jerked through, half-deaf from the fusillade around our ears. I had never heard shooting before. It wasn’t like the movies. Something squishy slammed against the bars just as we jumped clear. I didn’t want to look. I could’ve cried to be among people again, and tried to thank them, but any man I approached reared like a spooked horse.
“They’re a little traumatized,” Cowper observed, taking me aside. “Send ’em a thank-you note.”
Reynolds announced, “Hold your fire! That thing’s got more holes than the goddamn Albert Hall.” At his command, a man swaggered past us wearing a tank on his back like an exterminator. Using a sparking device, he ignited a pale blue pilot light at the end of his weapon and pointed it at the writhing pulp outside. Liquid fire sprayed through the gate. Its oily yellow glow cast all the men’s unshaven faces in gold, making them look like combatants in some Hollywood spectacle.
“Cowper!” called Reynolds from above. In the waning torchlight, he, too, looked heroic up on his crowded platform, like Napoleon reviewing the troops, but he was obviously extremely annoyed about us traipsing through the scene. “Get that girl out of here before somebody shoots her by accident. They’ll fill you in at Building Nineteen.”
“I have to go to the Front Office,” Cowper said.
“The Front Office is restricted to company executives and NavSea.”
“Since when?”
“Since you’ll find out. Now go.”
“I want to talk to Sandoval.”
The other man’s laugh was mirthless and distracted. “Sandoval’s a little scarce these days, along with the rest of the suits in upper management. Talk to Ed Albemarle.”
“Ed Albemarle? From Finishing?”
“He’s in charge of you people. Better hurry—it’s after curfew.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, but Cowper was plainly troubled by it, and that was enough to disturb me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I retired here after twenty years,” he groused, nodding to himself. “That was after serving twenty in the Navy, and you’re gonna tell me that son of a bitch won’t talk to me? He’ll talk to that asshole Coombs, but he won’t talk to me? Bullshit. I served with Rickover, for Christ sake! I got more experience than both of them assholes put together. We’ll see about this . . .”
He started leading me away, but just then the man with the flamethrower was sent outside the fence, and we were caught up in the sudden, expectant lull. “Why is he doing that?” I asked, appalled.
A hyper young guard standing nearby said, “That’s Griggs; he’s hard-core. ‘Have Flamethrower, Will Travel.’ First time I saw it I was like, ‘Whoa!’ It’s his job to make sure nothing’s left wiggling on the doorstep that might creep in your bunk later on. Somebody’s gotta do it!”
In spite of his heavy fuel tank
, Griggs moved lightly, a black silhouette against the settling dusk, pilot flame darting back and forth. Every few seconds he would let loose a dripping gust of fire down the concrete hedgerows, as if trying to flush game. Just before he reached the last row, I saw movement. Something large, pale, more crablike than human, had been hiding in the smoldering wreck of the car. Now it rose at him from the murk.
He was ready for it, unleashing a billowing yellow plume that met the thing and swallowed it whole. But in that gorgeous light, Griggs must have seen what we all saw, captured in midair like a camera flash: four garish monstrosities, jittery-fast in the sepia light as creatures in a bizarro silent movie, coming at him from either side. In that split second, Griggs knew he was dead. I knew the feeling, too, and perhaps because I had been wrong, I expected something to intervene, to save him, but when the nearest one—a feral harpy wearing a coat of greasy flame—caught Griggs up in her blazing rapture and bellowed into his face with a mouthful of fire, lips peeling back like bacon, black teeth gnashing, hair a crackling torch, then covered his mouth with her own as the others piled on, I could only whimper, “No, no, no . . .”
Shocked cries and gunfire rose from the men around us, then were drowned out by the double explosion of the car and Griggs’s tank. A fireball like an immense Japanese lantern rose into the sky, radiating debris and baking heat. It enveloped the watchtower, sending men ballooning upward and dropping them like charred scarecrows. Reynolds was caught completely off guard. I saw him up there just before the fire-cloud hit, and he seemed to be looking off into the distance. Perhaps he didn’t much care that the air was suddenly sucked from his lungs, or that the chill evening had become a blast furnace. Perhaps, like Griggs, he already knew he was dead, having seen in that baleful light the hordes of Xombies emerging from the trees and scrambling across the grassy divide toward the fence.
“Time to skedaddle,” said Cowper, dragging me away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Somewhat reluctantly, I let Cowper lead me from the zone of frantic activity at the fence to the relative peace just beyond. The road continued, deserted, through tracts of no-man’s-land and widely spaced industrial buildings. Cries of unseen gulls echoed in the dark.
Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Page 4
